Withering
by LittlePinkTerror
Summary: Fairy tales were for children and nobles; not for a Warden.
1. Chapter 1

Denerim's castle was full of ghosts. She kept seeing them in the flickering fires of torches aligning stone walls at night.

Here inside this room, Morrigan's golden eyes had desperately beseeched her to not be foolish. The wind from a howling storm that brought no rain had keened eerily through wood and brick alike, making the eve before the battle somehow--so much more appropriate. She remembered thinking that even the wind mourned what was what is, and what might become.

Torches in their sconces stuttered, flickered and hissed as they burned their oil sending meandering coils of black into the air. The torches stained the walls every night and every morning these stains would be scrubbed away. Teams of meek-faced elves and human servants alike all scuttled bleary eyed each morning to dutifully scrub; making the hollow-at-night-castle not so dark. Not so foreboding.

Not so filled with memories.

_In death, sacrifice._

The words clung to her in these idle days and during these nights when she, like the ghosts she often imagined, wandered the halls. Every night she let her fingertips trail along the jagged, unevenly cut walls--feeling the rock beneath her hand. The gray stone-gray stone. _I should have been stone_, she thinks. To him, and to all of them.

Perhaps it would have made things easier.

In the beginning, after the Archdemon, after the war and the death and the rebuilding… it was still sweet enough.

Alistair, despite the many protestations of his court? Continued his nightly visits to her chambers. Sometimes, he liked to appear in the middle of the day when she was wrist-deep in scrolls. Warden business, for some reason now that Alistair had become King, despite being the senior most warden, the responsibilities of Soldier's Peak and Ferelden's band…such as it was, fell to her. And he had loved, then, making his body guards give chase to her unofficial office, leaving them sputtering and protesting behind a slammed shut door whilst he grinned down at her.

It's the grin that had always melted her, she thinks. At first it had been boyish, innocent and charming. Now, he had somehow mashed all of these things with a certain very adult knowing into that grin. Each time it made her insides feel like molten gold.

So he would shut the door. He would toss his breast plate aside without care for the resounding crash. She'd laugh and clear the desk. Somehow he'd always remember the rose petals.

She'd forgotten the one lesson she had learned at the alienage, however. That one solitary teaching that had been pounded into her skull over and over again…The single knowing she should not have forgotten after her disastrous wedding--

"Nothing good can stay. It will never last. It will always be taken away by some _shem_," her cousin had bitterly remarked.

She paused at the doorway of a cozily lit room, not seeing it.

At first, of course, Alistair would not hear reason. Amicable and approachable, he was willing to make light of himself despite the heavy crown on his head. The court did not quite know how to handle him and at times, forgot their place.

The backbone several doubted Alistair even had became apparent early on, when his court of men--each thinking they knew best-- attempted to speak to him about marriage. About his elf companion (and when he was not in earshot? Elf _whore_) and, how could he not see that he must take a wife? A noble wife, to ensure the safety and peace of Ferelden! That he must, post-haste and at once, create an heir for the throne or all would be for naught. His council did not care for the Darkspawn threat anymore; as far as they were concerned, their King had solved it all by himself and more pressing concerns now weighed the country.

Like his loins and what sprang from them.

Broaching the topic with him was like watching a tornado gather in the distance. His advisors and lordlings did not see the way his features had gone from bemused to slack in the span of seconds and they were never quite prepared for ferocity of his response. He and his personal guards often left those complaining the loudest, blinking in surprise as the gilded doors to the throne room slammed shut.

But months passed.

Paper work piled up for her. He remarked one evening when the first messengers arrived for her and she complained, "_You_ made me King, remember?" a twinkle in his eye.

"I'm busy parading about the country, looking dashing in my armor and kissing babies. Did you know Kings are supposed to kiss babies? I'm not quite sure what the point of it is. They're very smelly and cry a lot...you knoooooow, come to think of it, they're quite like my court, aren't they?"

So he had things to do and she had things to do. And eventually, her office no longer smelled like roses. Neither did her room. There was no gilded, golden armor left carelessly on a chair inside of her bed chamber. There was talk of political _arrangements_, and a princess from Orlais…

Talk of golden hair. Talk of blue eyes. Talk of good of the country and for the Throne. A portrait had arrived last month of a magnificent creature that had made her both envious, enthralled, and blackly bitter for an entire week. _And how could I possibly compare to a princess?_ she thought. Messengers mistook the fire in her eyes and had shrunk from her. Couriers and page boys recoiled in the hallways as she strode through them, gray skirts whisking with annoyance.

Eventually, the King stopped yelling about it and had begun to listen. She'd stopped coming to court to save him the embarrassment. People whispered and pointed now. The King's whore, they'd mouth near her. She stopped visiting his office, so that he would not have to clench his jaw and glare soundly at his chamberlain who stared fire at her every time she came near. Or the human servants who did little to hide their disgust and disapproval--_he's our king! He deserves so much more than some **knife-ear**_--for the sake of their sanity, she'd stopped _everything_.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected.

She supposed that she thought he would come striding (and clanking) down to her office one day and throw open the door. He'd say something incredibly stupid and endearing all at once. Maybe they would fight and, maybe they wouldn't. But the end to the fairy tale would be everything turning out right again, and he would kiss her and she would lean in like she always did and whisper: _again_. He'd blush to his ears and then--

Fairy tales. For children and nobility.

He never came and that, perhaps, hurt the most. And she knew it was foolish! She had known deep down that his duty would be that of his country. Of Ferelden's. She knew she was being selfish; but as time passed it became more difficult to remind herself of this greater good. It became far more difficult not speak on it and taste the bitterness of being alone at the back of her throat; tears in a bottle drank from but not yet shed.

Even the elven servants eventually went from warm to cool around her. After all, she was the single most reason why he wouldn't marry, wasn't she? She's the reason he had no wife and no litters of golden curly-haired babies.

He stopped coming. She stopped sleeping. The nightmares, not by the taint, but of Darkspawn and killing and the things she'd had to do to survive…Or men and anger, of a wedding fouled? Those nightmares had returned. And as much as she tried burying herself in work, traveling all over the place and then some to be rid of the thoughts of him…It didn't work.

She lifted her finger tips to the wall again. "I envy you," she told the chilled rock. A simple wool austere gown whispered as she turned a corner and--

"Who do you envy?" Alistair asked, as she found herself staring blankly at a golden breast plate while he looked about the hallway behind her.

His appearance and voice was a blow she'd not been prepared for--was she ever?--and all of her air seemed to leak out of her, leaving her breathless.


	2. Goodbye Little Lights

_Author's note: I don't have a beta reader. I've been trying my best to find the typos, the spelling flubs and the awkwardness as I go. I'm putting these up here because I need your help to make them awesome. So please point out any mistakes you see because I've only got two eyes. They're starting to cross at this point. _

* * *

Alistair had watched her withdraw over the months, felt her slipping further and further away.

It made him think of when he was a much younger boy, trying to catch the spring-fluff seeds in his clumsy young hands. Try as he might to get close to capturing them, the window would come along and leave his hands splayed and hollow.

So when he had finally found her wandering the lowest halls within the castle murmuring to herself, touching the walls as if she didn't recognize them anymore….Everything he'd carefully planned on saying fled on a cruel wash of worry.

She looked as translucent pale as she had when he'd first set eyes on her in Ostragar which seemed like his whole life away from now! She was beginning to sun-darken, wasn't she? His memory said she was—and now she was see-through pale. He could see the delicate blue spidering veins if he _really_ wanted to think about, along her neck and jaw. And she was thin. Thin and ethereal as if all it took was the slightest breeze and she'd leave his splayed hands.

He didn't want to think about that. He was very good at _not_ thinking about things, at least.

He cleared his throat and smiled, pretending the sky-blue half rings under her gray-green eyes did not bother him at all. "I said, who do you en—"

She blinked up at him finally and the fact that her face was so blank—_Maker's breathe_—he thought she might have been in the fade. If it wasn't for the fact he couldn't feel it and his nerves weren't screaming on fire which was the _usual _unfortunate warning for a Templar that a mage was channeling.

"Your _Majesty_," she coolly greeted him, and then swayed a tiny bit. Out of habit, he reached up to grip the tops of her arms gently to steady her. He did it without thinking, of course. For a moment he saw something pass across the sharpness of her elven face. Her wide mouth softened as he'd seen it replay in his memories so many times. Always right before she'd sigh and say, oh Alistair. _You really are an idiot_, and then he'd grin and she'd—

She'd pulled out of his gauntlet covered hands with a straightening of her spine that felt like ice clicking together at the back of his head. He cursed having to wear armor day in and day out…_But your Majesty! What if someone was to attempt to take your life_, the lords had protested. And the Bann's all nodded along, echoing, you_ need to be protected at all time_!

"Ameria—" She _Maker well knew_ he hated hearing that title from her. _Usually_. Well. There were _certain times _when she said it that made his toes curl but now was not the time to be thinking about _that_.

"I hear that congratulations are in order, your majesty." She folded her hands across her middle. He _knew_ that gesture. He'd seen it so many times right before she steeled herself to cast spells that made Darkspawn explode. He was a little worried…

"Are you—my…Congrat—_what_?—Ar—_who_?" _Andraste's filly knickers_! When did he revert to being thirteen again and finding his first chin-hair? He reached out to try and touch her again and she took a quick step back. He felt as if his heart had plunged into his stomach when she did, the weight of a full suit of armor suddenly had him weary.

"Ameria what—"

She cut him off again. "Your new bride is exquisite," interjected. "Your Majesty is most lucky to land such a splendid _human_, and so well bred." She tried to keep her voice even, cold. But he swore he could hear the low keening of a wounded animal in there somewhere.

He could almost imagine the sound his heart and stomach made as they hit his feet.

"Wellllllll I suppose yes," he said. "She's rather pretty for a princess but aren't all princess you know…generally pretty anyway? I—" He's talking without thinking again, isn't he? Her face, her beautiful face—the face he'd remember cupped in his hands or touched by his finger or smiling in his dreams—went lax_, guarded. _

He really needs to write a note about this to himself, about talking, and what harm it could do.

"Is _that_ what is wrong? Maker preserve! I don't love her! I haven't even _seen_ her! Maybe she has a lazy eye and buck teeth. She could look like Oghren, for all I know I haven't—"

She kept interrupting him and it was really, _really_ starting to grate. "Your Majesty has a duty to perform."

It stopped him dead in his tracks. He hadn't realized that he'd stalked toward her (well you really couldn't stalk in a full suit of armor on stone. In a hallway made of it. It was sort of like listening to a meandering band of angry children toss their metal dinner plates about in a creaky, jingle.)

"Duty? Duty? Oh _yes_, Minister Fuzzybeard-with-a-little-bit-of-corn-in-it, I do have a duty. I am well aware of my duty. I have duty three times a day, every day, did you know? And with it, a side of duty and a whole whopping Andraste's flaming corset goblet _fulllllll_ of duty. Mm-mm, duty. It's delicious with a side of lamb. My favorite!

"I _especially_ love duty first thing in the morning when I open my eyes after a good long night of not-sleeping because I am worried about _duty_." He could hear himself climbing steadily toward shouting and that is not what he wanted. He stopped, took a deep breath and reached for her again.

She couldn't be doing this on purpose. She couldn't. She cried after she killed the Darkspawn for Maker's sake! When Zevran mocked her for it, she told him she took no joy in death and would not speak to him for days. Ameria cried when Leliana played sad songs or sappy ones. She cried if she laughed too much. She cried for Ferelden and she wept bitterly the night she claimed Alistair King and the night before the Archde—he didn't want to think about that night. Ever again. He pushed it from him.

Ameria could not be cruel where it was not warranted. Where it wasn't—oh no. Oh, _no, no, no_.

"I don't want duty, I want _you_. I love _you_, Ameria. That hasn't changed!" When he settled a hand to the top of her shoulder he cursed himself again for gauntlets. He just wanted to touch her! He tried to take off the other gauntlet, fumbling with it by using his teeth.

She weathered this stoically. They were arguing and the king was leaning on her absently gnawing on his own gauntlet.

He thought he saw her mouth tick uncontrollably along the corners. As if she might, despite it all give away a smile. It made him pause for a moment and stare hopefully even if he had a mouthful of leather and metal. Which, to his surprise, really didn't taste very well and made him wonder why dogs adored chewing on leather so much.

"No?" She began easily enough. It was deceptively light and her hands did not move to touch him. They curled together over her middle and then were clutched tightly. That sinking feeling returned in the pit of his stomach and he stopped chewing on the gauntlet.

"You love me, but you could not find the time to even come see me in the last three months?" She took another step away. Her severe gray skirts swished almost angrily against the tiles as she danced away from his hands as if tugged by the wind.

"You love me, but you couldn't write me a single letter to say so. You love me, yet for weeks upon end you could not take a single moment to come see me? Not even pass me by in the halls—_in the same castle we both occupy_." Bitter did not sound right from her, he thought. She should never sound bitter. It made her voice all wrong. And it _hurt_. Maker it hurt.

Alistair pointed a single, sodden armored finger at her. "That's not exactly fair, now, is it? I'm the King, remember? The King _you_ put on the Maker's bloody Throne!" And instead of him teasing her lightly about it, his face had twisted into something much harder. Something months sitting perched atop a throne could twist a man into.

" _You_ said you wanted me to be King! So here I am being King!" He was so confused. He did what she wanted him to do, didn't he?

"And I've been eyeballs up in doing all these King-things that need be doing because apparently this country can't sneeze without asking me first.

"What did you want? What _do_ you want? Did you want me to drop Ferelden and come running?" He was angry. He realized it seconds too late when he had found himself shouting again, he voice echoing from the walls. At the back of his mind, a teeeeny tiny voice—the same one who told him not to go play in that cage where he ended up being locked in for a day, and ignored anyway—told him that he should stop. He wasn't really upset with her at all, it wasn't her fault really that someone wanted his attention every hour of everyday and that that, was the price the King paid. He should stop before it got out of hand.

But he didn't listen.

"Sorry war! Sorry Darkspawn! Sorry thousands and thousands of people who depend on me every waking moment to make important decisions with them in mind." He spread out his hands and spoke to a crowd that did not exist in the hallway. "Can't come in today to play King because _Ameria_ needs attention."

He dropped his hands with a small clang at his greaves. "Is that what you want? Really?"

_Please say yes_, he found himself abruptly thinking. _Please say yes so I can drop pretending to be King and let Anora out of the tower. I'll plop the crown on her head and we can go and be like we used to. Like it was. I can curl around you at night when you sleep to keep your demons away; protect you and comfort you. I can listen to the sound of you breathing and your heart's rhythm matching mine. I can kiss you when you cry, and laugh when you laugh. I can love you without_—

"I am leaving tomorrow," quietly. Those four words fell between them as heavy lead, stopping the flow of air.

He'd been nearly crushed once by Sten. He'd been pushed into the Templar during a particularly nasty battle outside of Lothering; Alistair hadn't even been able to leak out a breath to tell him to get off him. This feeling her words brought was a lot like that but worse.

"_Why_?" It's all he could wrangle himself to say without cracking. And men—no, Kings—they didn't weep.

She didn't say anything. She only watched him with this eldritch mix of emotions on her face he couldn't read anymore and he thought, maybe, he was just going to die. Right then and there. Or maybe that's just what he wished.

She didn't say_, haha Alistair, fooled you_! Or_, Maker! I'm sorry for saying that. We're being so childish, aren't we? I don't know what got into me!_ Except she didn't say anything! Everything was going too fast and too wrong. His head was reeling and he didn't understand how they came to this in the few seconds it took him to round the corner and open his mouth!

He kept seeing a little seed on the wind. She was his little seed, right there at the edge of his fingertips but the wind kept sweeping her away.


	3. This is War

_In death, sacrifice._

If Alistair had not been standing in front of her, lost, bewildered and hurt, she might have sob-laughed at the words circling inside her head.

_This isn't death_, she thought, but it feels like it should be.

_Gray Wardens must be neutral,_ Duncan's voice from what seemed so far away in her memories, floated to the surface. _We must remain, if you will permit me a bit of irony--Gray--in all that we do. We are not meant to influence politics; we are meant to protect those who cannot protect themselves against the Darkspawn, regardless of race, class, country or birth-right. We are the last stand. The last weapon.  
__  
__You would do well to remember that._

She let that loop endlessly in her mind as she tried to distance herself from the crumbling man before her. Glorious in a suit of golden armor, each time she spoke his shoulders with heavy pauldrons drooped a little more, a little more and a little more until she found herself clutching her middle to keep her hands to herself.

_I have made a Gray Warden King. I have done exactly that which Duncan would never have done. I have meddled in the affairs of countries and politics; blindly without understanding the consequences. Both to the man I put on the throne, to myself, and to Ferelden--which I pledged to protect.  
__  
__I must end this before my misguided decisions of the past worsen the future. _

The council had been whispering her name as if it were curse. Originally the defeat of the Arch Demon tales had her swinging the killing blow and surviving; the bards sung her name and drunken pledges in bars slurred her name joyfully. The Wardens sent to question them both seemed to accept their naive responses of not knowing why she'd survived. But they lingered and they seemed reluctant to let it go. This too, created a stir of speculation that clung to her through out the halls of the castle.

Change for humans seemed a difficult thing. It would not take them long before they reverted back to what they knew…what was safe.

In weeks, the story twisted. Soon she was but one of the many names standing behind Alistair, the great King, who had slain the arch demon himself one handed. Weeks after that, her name along with Stens, Shale's, Oghran's and Zevran's faded like mist. To hear the tale today, one would think that Alistair, Wynne and Leliana had felled the dragon single handed and saved the world from Blight in one afternoon.

And not long after that, the council began its insidious accusations. Why did she make no claim to the throne? She was the most powerful woman, no, _elf_ in Ferelden; bending the King's ear to her will. Of course, there must be something behind her true affections--no _elf_, would remain trustworthy to a human long! She must be waiting, they whispered, waiting to amass enough Wardens loyal to her so that she can strike and secure her place where Anora once stood.

After all, wasn't she already collecting new Trainee's? Wasn't she already corresponding to couriers sent from Weisshaupt fortress--learning the suspiciously secret ways of the Warden to further corrupt human youth and lead them astray? Surely the King needed a human wife. Not a lowly common slave.

She knew if she stayed, it would only get worse.

So she did the only thing she knew how to do, and do well. She tried to shut him out. She kept her distance. She danced out of his hands each time he desperately tried to reach her.

It took all that she had to keep her face a mask, but each second was far more harrowing than any ritual or any counter measurements a templar might hold. Each slow thump of her heart as the charade of not-caring continued drained away everything she had until she felt so tired.

The worst of it was when realization hit him; when his eyebrows unwrinkled themselves out of bewilderment and climbed to his hairline. He knew why she was doing this, _Wardens must remain neutral_….He'd been there after all, when Duncan had given her a hurried few points about her new abilities. Before he sent them out into the wilds and before--

He was reaching for her again, telling her, "I don't want duty, I want _you_. I love _you_, Ameria. That hasn't changed!"

She mustn't let him touch her or she thought that she might shatter. So she danced away from familiar fingertips and tried to muster anger from within somewhere. She accused him of not caring, she accused him of ridiculous things that were not of his control.

She listened as her mark hit and he shouted in return, his voice echoing cold down the hallways.

_I am sorry, my love. My knight, my silly King. I will atone for the decisions I have made and for breaking a good man's heart. I am sorry, Alistair. I am sorry. Forgive me. I am sorry, forgive me. I am sorry, forgive me._

Like he had trained her in the shadows of Ostragar moons ago, she waited, she weighed him and she watched him carefully in order to land the perfect blow. _This will be easier for both of us with time._

_Will it_, said a little voice. She ignored it.

"I am leaving tomorrow,"she informed him as flatly as possible. She thought that she had made herself stone but those four words tumbled out of her mouth and became a lead weight between them. He reared his head upward as if she had landed a harsh slap across his cheek. He stared at her.

"_Why?_" he croaked. Not trusting herself to speak at all, she could only watch him while the silence grew bow-string taut between them again. Everything she felt seemed shoved--trapped--into her rib cage to beat wildly against the them, demanding freedom.

He expected her to answer. He _needed_ her to answer and she could not give him anything, because if she opened her mouth she suspected all she would give him was a low keen. Instead, she forced stiff fingers clutched white-knuckled together to reach up, over her ear. Behind her ear was a small thing she had worn since he'd given it to her and she offered it now for him to take back.

He stared down into the palm of her hand where the red rose lay. The gift he had given her that had taken more of his courage than facing any Darkspawn ever had-_I picked it in Lothering. I remember thinking, 'how could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness?' I probably should have left it alone but I couldn't…The Darkspawn would come and their taint would destroy it. I've had it ever since.  
__  
__I…I thought that I might give it to you, actually, and_… he had started blushing to his very ears. _In a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you…_

He made a small sound she could not identify. His eyes seemingly glued to the rose he drug himself forward slowly, walking as if all of the events in his life finally came crashing down around his ears. The closer he came to her the more his scent, metal, soap, leather, oil, parchments and ink and unmistakably _him_, filled her mouth as well as nose.

It was all she could do to not step forward, meeting him halfway.

Her fingers around the rose trembled and her vision began to swim. Duty and honor and Gray Warden neutrality fled her head, replaced by the chant of his name as he finally closed the distance between them and…

Stepped around her.

A mixture of relief and sorrow made her eyelids flutter shut. He was leaving with no more words and no more questions. It was an ending she had half hoped for and half dreaded.

She had done what she should have done before she made him King. In her mouth and in her heart, this knowledge warped into a bitter flavor.

Bitter as the ashes kicked up in the wind from a funeral pyre.

"_We are not over_," he quietly said as he abrubtly turned then leaned down to let the gnarled words wash across the pointed edge of her ear. He had to wonder if she truly thought he was going to leave her with nothing?

He reached forward, touched her fingers. They were long and beautiful even scarred now from the many daggers, arrows and sword cuts deflected across them. He closed them over the rose he'd given her with no resistance and pushed her hand slightly back. He would not take it.

Even though her eyes were closed; he watched as dispassionately as he could as water rolled down pale cheeks.

"As long as you draw in breath, as long as you remain under the stars, the sun and the sky--_I will not stop fighting for you_--for _us_. No more than I would stop fighting Darkspawn.

"I will not lie down and let everything we have done and said fade into bitter shades of once-was.

"Go if you must, but go with the knowledge that I will be in your shadow and that_ I will not give up_.

"If this is war, than I shall win it." He made himself wrench his hand back to his side and walk away from her. He was the King. He was a man. He would not weep for what he refused to lose and he convinced himself not to look back.

He thought he'd heard the wet sound of a half swallowed sob scuttle as dead leaves across the hall's carved out walls.

It was later in his room without the heavy weight of armor that he sunk to the edge of an empty bed to replay the events of the night. Over and over and over in his head. Every word, every accusation, every gesture repeated itself and he turned it about, analyzed it while questioning it. He saw where her eyes betrayed each word she said and begged him to touch her, even when she stepped away. He saw himself reflected in the gray-green of her eyes. Some perfect man in golden armor distant and far away.

But he was so far from perfect. So _very_ not perfect and so very stupid for not seeing this would happen before now.

King's--no-- grown men did not weep. Tomorrow he had things to do, treaties to sign, criminals to condemn or to set free, land to hand out, maybe say something stupid and have countries try to go to war with him.

He could not afford to himself be seen as weakened. Not now, not here.

This is what he kept telling himself at the very least; as he sunk his head into his hand to smother the sound of alone.


	4. Weapons Drawn

The day was absolutely miserable.

Dawn seemed to lethargically crawl her way out of the darkened bed of night, bleary eyed and weary from a restless sleep. It was cold enough that Alistair and a few chosen knights settled in their sputtering frozen-rain drenched armor could see each exhale. Denerim was a city and as such, there was no rest for it. Bakers and hawkers and shop keepers were all ready and filling the chilled air with the distant sounds of life. Here at the castle even, servants could be heard with the horses. A person could almost think they caught the sound of chamberlains berating page boys and scullery maids, too.

They were lined behind him on good, Ferelden horses of differing colors—all bred to hold a man in full plate with ease.

Perhaps it was the king's black mood this morning that kept them from nickering or side-dancing nervously. As much as they tried to avoid catching his eye this drab, gray morning, several of his knight-lieutenants and commanders dared sneak glances from the corners of their eyes. Their Liege had spoken little, an unusual thing for Alistair to do. His eyes were stained beneath with the mottled blue of a very long evening with little sleep. He had said very little as he roused them personally, early in the morning, and commanded them with a dark look to arrive ready for travel, promptly, outside the southern stables.

Most of his men had never seen Alistair upset before. Most of his men were not with him during the Blight, nor witness to how he had to deal with everything after.

Reland, however, had seen many things. She had been on that roof of the fortress when everything had changed. She had seen the king's face shatter when his elf mage took up her staff and plunged it into the arch demon as well as his face after. It looked a lot like. . .

Reland nudged her horse out of formation lightly, feeling the startled glances of the other knights' crawl along her well armored back.

"Your Majesty—" she started. Alistair swiveled his golden head about and over a shoulder to settle a hard gaze on Reland's dark brown head. She was also the only knight brave enough to sigh, quietly, even as his look stilled her tongue.

They'd all tried arguing with him earlier. Arguing with your country's ruler was a risky, delicate business and in the end Alistair had used that against them.

And so? Here they all were now, staring at a side-door leading to the stables, dripping wet and miserable in addition to mostly still waiting for their minds to adjust to being awake while early dawn sputtered dull light over castle cobblestone.

When the door finally opened, causing Alistair to shoot upright in his saddle then snapping his head around—Reland understood _immediately_ why they were there. Upon seeing Amell, the king had set his features into the same lines she'd been privy to fighting alongside His Majesty, on the battlefield and in training. While his sword remained sheathed at his back, he looked a man ready to fight with feet apart as well as weapons drawn.

The king's little red-gold headed elf had backed out of the door, her back to the gathering as she shut it with dull click. None-the-wiser about what awaited her when she turned around.


End file.
